[Envinyatar]

"Please", she whispered to the night around her.

Her plea broke through the layers of dreams, and he sat up quickly, thinking his daughter, Meldë, had called out to him. She had often had dreams that frightened her, and he had always been the one to see to her, leaving his wife to slumber on. But his was not his bed, nor did the breeze that blew in the window bring with it the fresh tang of the Ringló . . . and there, beside him, was the empty bed giving lie to his sleep-fogged hopes. Still, someone had cried out, and he rose from the bed as he remembered Vanwe, who lay sleeping in the next room.

If, indeed, it had been her, she now lay sleeping once again, turned on her side, the quilt drawn up to her chin. He sat on the edge of the mattress, as he had done for his daughter, and rubbed the small of her back. ‘It’s all right now, little one,’ he murmured soothingly to her. ‘The bad things have fled; they cannot find you.’ She hunched her shoulders at his words, the quilt slipping from them. Derufin settled it back over her, and brushed the hair back from her sleeping face. For a few moments, he watched as her breathing slowed and her eyes lay quiet behind her lids.

Rising up, he took his pouch and pipe from the table near the bed and went out into the Inn yard to sit on the bench beneath the great oak . . .